3 ms·

Maybe we should add some bones, bury the skeleton again and wipe all records of what we did.

beng-nl 2y ago
Maybe that’s what happened already.
metalman 2y ago
the very nature of our current record keeping, guarantees that a very great deal of anything bieng done now will vanish papyrus will survive long after the inevitable neglect and bit rot destroy our digital archives The massive physical remains of our times ,accompanied by those most enduring of our written records, labels and logos, wont tax future investigators imaginations in figuring out what happened to us. I personaly, have access to many bones, and have toyed with creating chimera skeletons, history is too deep, and people are too wierd to draw any conclusions, much of the time.
- canadianfella 2y ago
  [dead]
- lolinder 2y ago
  People always say this like it's somehow unique to bit rot, but only ancient Egypt really managed to preserve a substantial portion of their original records, and that's just because they won the geographic lottery in that regard. Pretty much every other field of history relies on copies that were made of the most popular works. > papyrus will survive long after the inevitable neglect This isn't inherently true of papyrus. Taken into a climate wetter than Egypt (in other words, pretty much any other climate where people actually live) it begins to disintegrate very quickly and needs constant maintenance. A large portion of our records will be lost, such is the nature of things, but I'm going to bet that we leave a greater percentage of our works than any other civilization. We'll probably beat ancient Egypt, but we'll certainly beat everyone else. People are keenly aware of how ephemeral records are (digital or paper) and make concerted efforts to archive them in permanent storage.
  - noworriesnate 2y ago
    A huge portion of Assyrian cuneiform was preserved due to the fact that fires ravaged their cities, baking their clay tablets, if I understand correctly. Most of it hasn't even been translated yet. The Assyrian Empire was in the early iron age though, and Egyptian records go much further back than that I think.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - jvm___ 2y ago
    Was Egypt able to keep their culture for so long, and build many structures and temples - simply because they could transmit ideas through time? Other cultures would be stuck relearning the same building techniques and religious ceremonies every generation and relying on faulty oral histories. Papyrus as a communication method through time.
    - evoke4908 2y ago
      Probably not, at least not significantly. AFAIK most people couldn't read, it was mainly the clergy and nobility as in most ancient civilizations. Egyptian culture persisted because Egypt persisted. The Nile provided immense prosperity and sustained the country for millenia. Once we get to modern antiquity, they had a massive trade operation with Rome which sustained them for a thousand years. Culture can persist and be transmitted without written record. Most cultures operated this way, at least initially. Remember that universal literacy did not exist until just a few hundred years ago. Most people throughout history were not taught to read. Their stories were recorded by the clergy in writing for posterity, but on a day to day basis, they were passed down by word of mouth. I might be wrong about this one but AFAIK the heiroglyph script we associate with Egypt was a lost language for a long time. It was a ceremonial language known only by the priests and it was forgotten after the last dynasty. Until the Rosetta stone was discovered, all of that writing was effectively lost, unreadable until modern times.
    - yoz-y 2y ago
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Why....do you have access to 'many bones'
  - wlonkly 2y ago
    I have access to at least 206.
karim79 2y ago
I would throw in an iPhone for good measure.

Maybe that’s what happened already.

the very nature of our current record keeping, guarantees that a very great deal of anything bieng done now will vanish papyrus will survive long after the inevitable neglect and bit rot destroy our digital archives The massive physical remains of our times ,accompanied by those most enduring of our written records, labels and logos, wont tax future investigators imaginations in figuring out what happened to us. I personaly, have access to many bones, and have toyed with creating chimera skeletons, history is too deep, and people are too wierd to draw any conclusions, much of the time.

canadianfella 2y ago
[dead]
lolinder 2y ago
People always say this like it's somehow unique to bit rot, but only ancient Egypt really managed to preserve a substantial portion of their original records, and that's just because they won the geographic lottery in that regard. Pretty much every other field of history relies on copies that were made of the most popular works. > papyrus will survive long after the inevitable neglect This isn't inherently true of papyrus. Taken into a climate wetter than Egypt (in other words, pretty much any other climate where people actually live) it begins to disintegrate very quickly and needs constant maintenance. A large portion of our records will be lost, such is the nature of things, but I'm going to bet that we leave a greater percentage of our works than any other civilization. We'll probably beat ancient Egypt, but we'll certainly beat everyone else. People are keenly aware of how ephemeral records are (digital or paper) and make concerted efforts to archive them in permanent storage.
- noworriesnate 2y ago
  A huge portion of Assyrian cuneiform was preserved due to the fact that fires ravaged their cities, baking their clay tablets, if I understand correctly. Most of it hasn't even been translated yet. The Assyrian Empire was in the early iron age though, and Egyptian records go much further back than that I think.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- jvm___ 2y ago
  Was Egypt able to keep their culture for so long, and build many structures and temples - simply because they could transmit ideas through time? Other cultures would be stuck relearning the same building techniques and religious ceremonies every generation and relying on faulty oral histories. Papyrus as a communication method through time.
  - evoke4908 2y ago
    Probably not, at least not significantly. AFAIK most people couldn't read, it was mainly the clergy and nobility as in most ancient civilizations. Egyptian culture persisted because Egypt persisted. The Nile provided immense prosperity and sustained the country for millenia. Once we get to modern antiquity, they had a massive trade operation with Rome which sustained them for a thousand years. Culture can persist and be transmitted without written record. Most cultures operated this way, at least initially. Remember that universal literacy did not exist until just a few hundred years ago. Most people throughout history were not taught to read. Their stories were recorded by the clergy in writing for posterity, but on a day to day basis, they were passed down by word of mouth. I might be wrong about this one but AFAIK the heiroglyph script we associate with Egypt was a lost language for a long time. It was a ceremonial language known only by the priests and it was forgotten after the last dynasty. Until the Rosetta stone was discovered, all of that writing was effectively lost, unreadable until modern times.
  - yoz-y 2y ago
idiotsecant 2y ago
Why....do you have access to 'many bones'
- wlonkly 2y ago
  I have access to at least 206.

karim79 2y ago

I would throw in an iPhone for good measure.